Serbs evacuate Semlin

The British chronology of the war records under 17 September 1914 that the Serbian troops in Syrmia had been withdrawn and Zemun, then called by its German name of Semlin, evacuated. It was the last act of the short Serbian expedition across the Sava. In reality the Serbian units had left the town several days earlier, and the date in the chronology probably corresponds to the moment when Semlin finally returned to Austro-Hungarian hands and the news of it reached London.

A week of freedom

The Serbs occupied Semlin on 10 September, after the Austro-Hungarian garrison had left it the previous evening. The local Serbian population greeted the soldiers with flowers, and after six weeks of silence the church bells rang again. The joy was short-lived. After the Austro-Hungarian blow across the Drina, Vojvoda Radomir Putnik ordered on 11 September that the offensive in Syrmia be broken off. According to Serbian accounts, the inhabitants of Semlin heard of the retreat on Sunday 13 September, and the last Serbian units crossed the Sava back into Belgrade on 13 or 14 September.

The Austro-Hungarians return

According to Serbian sources, nearly a thousand civilians fled from Semlin across the Sava together with the army, fearing revenge for the enthusiastic welcome given to the Serbs. Their fears proved justified. According to a study by the Cultural Centre of Novi Sad, Hungarian units entered the abandoned, undefended town on 16 September. In the following weeks crimes against the Serbian civilian population took place in Semlin and in other towns and villages of Syrmia. The houses of wealthier Serbs were burned, as were churches and schools.

Semlin once again became an Austro-Hungarian base opposite the Serbian capital. From here in the following weeks artillery and river monitors again shelled Belgrade, and at the beginning of December 1914 Austro-Hungarian troops entered Belgrade itself, abandoned by the Serbian army.